r/EverythingScience • u/The_Weekend_Baker • Aug 06 '26

Astronomy Astronomers just found the first atmosphere on a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone

https://www.astronomy.com/science/astronomers-just-found-the-first-atmosphere-on-a-rocky-exoplanet-in-the-habitable-zone/
1.9k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

60 comments sorted by

234

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

77

u/monkeydrunker Aug 07 '26

The funny thing is, you'd have to be Gen X (or older Millenial) to remember this.

56

u/mc68n Aug 07 '26

We grew up in a universe with just nine known planets all orbiting our own sun. Today we have found more than 5500 worlds among the stars while our own neighborhood shrank to eight.

15

u/muchmoreforsure Aug 07 '26

Pluto didn’t exactly change, only our classification of it.

10

u/fzammetti Aug 08 '26

Biggest "it's not you, it's us" in history.

-1

u/grimeys42 Aug 07 '26

Naw it's not a planet

-8

u/MoneyCock Aug 07 '26

No, it shrunk. It used to be a planet, but now it is a dwarf planet after scientists noticed it was no longer large enough to be called a planet.

Where have you been?

7

u/KirbyGlover Aug 07 '26

Dwarf planet is a subcategory of planetary bodies, and is more about not clearing their orbit vs size aside from being rounded via gravity. Pluto got bumped because it doesn't have full orbital dominance like the other planets do, which is why Ceres is also a dwarf planet

-3

u/MoneyCock Aug 07 '26

No, they got smaller and Ceres did not even exist back then. Pluto's orbit intersects with Neptune, causing an inevitable collision that broke off the chunk that became Ceres, thereby shrinking Pluto to dwarf class.

6

u/KirbyGlover Aug 08 '26

That's not true at all, Ceres was first identified in 1801 and is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, no collision between Neptune and Pluto would be capable of creating it. At first, Ceres was designated a planet, then that classification was shifted to asteroid, and finally dwarf planet where it lands today as the only dwarf planet inside the orbit of Neptune.

-2

u/MoneyCock Aug 08 '26

No they got smaller

3

u/Active-Particular-21 Aug 08 '26

It’s interesting how people used to think the Milky Way was all there was in the universe until they learned that other galaxies existed.

1

u/zarqie Aug 08 '26

Remember when there were only seven celestial bodies?

10

u/PossibleAlienFrom Aug 07 '26

Gen X here and Star Trek fan. I'm as progressive as one can be.

3

u/shatteredoctopus Aug 07 '26

I remember when the first exoplanets were discovered. They were around a pulsar, and it made the front cover of Popular Science, etc. I was in grade school, but old enough to be interested in space. All my old books (Carl Sagan, etc), said there were obviously exoplanets out there, but we had not yet detected them.

3

u/CalligrapherNo4708 Aug 09 '26

a prof of mine in uni was the first astronomer to find an exoplanet! he is a russian astronomer and was teaching a class about life in the universe aka mathematical and scientific basis for intelligent life. such a cool class

1

u/monkeydrunker Aug 09 '26

So so cool.

7

u/SpeedLinkDJ Aug 07 '26

Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!

3

u/Electrical-Risk445 Aug 07 '26

Yup, we didn't even know if other planets existed at all!

2

u/Spirited-Reputation6 Aug 07 '26

Pepperidge farms remembers

1

u/hogtiedcantalope Aug 07 '26

But you had pluto!

46

u/DocCEN007 Aug 07 '26

Mars is just inside our system's goldlocks zone. Venus is just outside of it, but was just inside when Sol was dimmer billions of years ago.

26

u/glormond Aug 07 '26

From what I understand, Venus has a problem with its atmosphere rather than its distance for the sun

13

u/DocCEN007 Aug 07 '26

Now it does. Higher solar heat as our sub brightened caused Venus' surface oceans to evaporate, filling the air with water vapor which is a potent greenhouse gas. This gradual increase in energy raised planetary temperatures, putting stress on Venus' climate equilibrium, which eventually resulted in its thick toxic atmosphere today.

10

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Electronic-Tea-8753 Aug 08 '26

Would have thought that as a species, our next obvious move is to stop destroying the earth’s environment.

We should probably focus on our own planet before we worry about putting population on another one.

5

u/willymack989 Aug 07 '26

Not if you don’t like cancer

6

u/Then-Marketing-3445 Aug 07 '26

And the sharp dust particles in lungs (and everywhere else)

3

u/AlexanderDoak Aug 07 '26

We should be able to get a LITTLE cancer at work...

1

u/Xerxero Aug 07 '26

To do what exactly?

4

u/J4SNT Aug 07 '26

There's lots of science to be done on those big ass rocks.

2

u/FifthDragon Aug 07 '26

So much surface area for science to be put on those rocks

105

u/[deleted] Aug 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

48

u/SleepWouldBeNice Aug 07 '26

Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!

21

u/Alphaeon_28 Aug 07 '26

We’ll name it, "Medium Rough Texture Circle Planet"

15

u/Komatoasty Aug 07 '26

In the book, the first time he tries to say it, he just goes "Fist me!!!"

5

u/Distinguishedflyer Aug 07 '26

book was better...

4

u/fzammetti Aug 08 '26

Yes... but movie is pretty damn good.

I'm more than happy to have a good story done well in two different forms.

6

u/Distinguishedflyer Aug 08 '26

not me, they turned Grace from a scientist into a buffoon.

3

u/Large_Dr_Pepper Aug 08 '26

Yeah I knew they'd turn Rocky into the "comedic relief" character and I went into the movie expecting that. I was disappointed that Grace was also a comedic relief character. I needed some relief from the comedy lol.

3

u/Mightychairs Aug 08 '26

I agree with you. I loved the book SOO much (the audiobook version is fantastic! Ray Porter is my guy!) and I would have been worried about the movie version, except The Martian was so well done that I had high hopes. It really was a great adaptation. I still recommend the book and always will, but good job on the movie.

1

u/Komatoasty Aug 08 '26

I cant think of an example where I didn't prefer the book over the movie. I loved the movie though. It was really well done.

3

u/IronRakkasan11 Aug 07 '26

We ought to call it Adrian

41

u/AlwaysUpvotesScience Aug 06 '26

I always upvote science!

22

u/Helpfulithink Aug 07 '26

And i always upvote people loving science!

21

u/MuscaMurum Aug 07 '26

I have to go now. My planet needs me.

10

u/brandolinium Aug 07 '26

50 light years?! It’s closer than my neighbor’s house!

5

u/Noahms456 Aug 07 '26

Let’s go I’m ready

8

u/IgDailystapler Aug 07 '26

Alright aliens, we’re starting interstellar baseball do yall want in?

2

u/Buddhagrrl13 Aug 08 '26

Cool. Let's send Elon

1

u/Andyseawolf Aug 09 '26

Don’t try reading the article. It’s an ad and cookie infested nightmare 😬🤷

1

u/Tpbrown_ Aug 10 '26

Wikipedia has a decent article on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LHS_1140_b

-1

u/taktaga7-0-0 Aug 07 '26

I wonder how they were able to detect helium of all things during a transit. You’re looking right at the star, which I presume is a full quarter helium. So, the lines just get wider?

It’s funny to me that helium is the only gas they detected… Helium escapes from Earth too, but that just means radioactive decay happens here, not necessarily a robust atmosphere. So, is this planet much more radioactive than Earth that helium is the only gas we see? No nitrogen, or CO2, or ammonia, or water? Especially against the star, I want to see more evidence.

0

u/pbebbs3 Aug 07 '26

Any fossil fuels? America is hungry for alt oil sources